As the semiconductor industry has advanced, the search for smaller chips has resulted in many experiments with various structural configurations utilizing an array of materials. Unfortunately, not all of these experiments have been fruitful. For example, as the demand for higher current has increased, so has the degree of failure in the semiconductor due to structural melt-downs and inadvertent electrical shorts. In fact, the degree of drain-to-source shorts has been studied extensively, and predictable results of such drain-to-source shorts have been summarized in scientific periodicals. See Aur, S., "Hot-Electron Reliability and ESD Latent Damage," IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Vol. 35, No. 12, Dec., 1988.
Many people have successfully designed around the problem that caused semiconductors to have drain-to-source shorts. Despite the presence of this commonly recurring drain-to-source short problem in the industry, no one has taken advantage of the predictability of such shorts. Instead, this drain-to-source short problem has been uniformly viewed as an industry thorn.
The present invention realizes that silicided MOS transistors which have a predictable drain-to-source shorting characteristic can be used as programmable interconnects to electrically program circuits after fabrication.